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The Role of Foucault's "Discipline and Punish" in Defining Modern Systems of Power
By Emma Naille Foucault’s “Discipline and Punish” outlines the history of the prison system and the switch from punishment as public embarrassment to punishment as a political message to control the public’s behavior. In the section we read, he focuses on the theme of discipline being a new technology of power. Foucault uses the example of the Panopticon to illustrate how modern systems of discipline have created a social “norm” where deviations from the norm are closely watched and swiftly corrected. These themes relate to the main idea we have discussed throughout the course of who is allowed to participate in discourse. In the case of “Discipline and Punish,” the state takes away the power of those in prison to participate in discourse by controlling their bodies. But Foucault goes even broader, asserting that in modern society, we all are constantly under the power of the state. He uses the examples of hospitals and schools, which are not supposed to be political in nature, to show how political structures of disciplining bodies has infiltrated all of society, implying that the public as a whole has no voice or place in discourse. “Discipline and Punish” reveals the way institutional discipline has influenced social discipline and how both have deprived individuals of their right and freedom to speak. Foucault's discussion of biopower, the controlling of bodies, relates to other topics we have discussed in this course such as performativity, postmodernism, and coercive power. The way the state controls bodies is a form of performativity, which means behaving in a way that makes things true, a facet of the postmodernist view. Biopower lets society do the disciplining, creating a social structure where being different or disobeying social norms is disciplined with public embarrassment, shaming, or outcasting. In Gramsci’s “Hegemony,” he talks about coercive power, which is the action the government takes to enforce laws, or simply to control people. Coercive power relates to Foucault’s piece because the modern prison system is a system of coercive power, it controls criminals bodies to control their ways of thinking. The system is self-regulating, it conditions individuals to keep others in line, allowing the government to stay in power. This system allows the state to control the public, removing their voice from discourse. Foucault argues that this constant state of power should motivate us to continually fight against this power, in a sense for people to demand to be heard, as those who were protesting in prisons were doing at the time “Discipline and Punish” was written. Throughout this course we have discussed relations of power, the way dominant groups protect their power, and how marginalized groups are repressed and deprived of power, specifically the power of language and being heard. “Discipline and Punish” elaborates on these themes by explaining how the state’s expression of power through the prison system has influenced every other aspect of life, making a society where dominant groups keep power through controlling bodies, and therefore controlling perspectives, suppressing any different or new ideas, identities, or voices. “Discipline and Punish” builds on previous thought on power, and groups that lack power, and also opened up new fields of thought, like the disciplining of women’s bodies and queer theory. It contributes to the course discussion by examining the role of social and state-imposed discipline in relations of power, proving that marginalized groups are regularly oppressed and silenced by discipline. Category:Foucault Category:Discipline and Punish Category:Bipower Category:Postmodernism Category:Power Category:Performativity Category:Dominant group